Institute of Advanced Studies

A Green ‘New Deal’? Confronting Climate Change and the Financial Crisis

2009 has been touted as the year for rebuilding as policy makers tackle the ‘perfect storm’ of climate change and the financial crisis. This seminar explored the idea that these policy challenges are of such significance that neither can be tackled in isolation.

The New Economics Foundation in the United Kingdom is just one group to call for a ‘Green New Deal’ – an attempt to develop a single approach to address the two main policy challenges of our time.  Western Australia, as a wealthy and resource dependent state, is particularly well positioned to lead a push a for new economic and environmental mode of thought.

This one-day seminar brought together key players in the debates surrounding these issues, in order to breathe new life into the case for urgent and coordinated public policy action. It was hosted by the Institute of Advanced Studies, the Western Australian Policy Forum and the Institute for Progressive Policy.

Four sessions were covered during the day:

• The Environment Challenge: what have we done and what is left to do?
• After the Crisis: the operation of the world financial system
• The Market and the State: developing a new economic order for our time
• The Western Australian Context

Convenors: David Hodgkinson, a member of The Hodgkinson Group, co-author of Global Climate Change: Australian Law and Policy, and visiting fellow with the School of Law UWA and Andrew Thackrah, History, UWA, and Convenor of the Institute for Progressive Policy.

Friday, 18 September 2009